I'm gradually getting used to my Alzheimer's disease, with its frequent random scattering of the words with which I was about to speak. But some times the words they produce for a scattering are lead me to an unexpected place - as in this short poem by Goethe that I loved for many years. Here's my clumsy translation, with the beautiful German original below.

  If our sight could not reach to the Sun,

  Our knowing never could embrace it;

  And if God’s work moved not in us,

  Then how could we delight in it? 
                  
   Wär' nicht das Auge sonnenhaft,
   Die Sonne könnt es nie erblicken;
   Läg nicht in uns des Gottes eigne Kraft,
   Wie könnt uns Göttliches entzücken?  )